We left the apartment in a tight diamond formation. I was on point and Becks was at the rear, with Dave and Alaric flanking Kelly in the center. If there were any other people in the building, they didn’t show themselves as we descended. That’s the right thing to do when you’re caught in an outbreak and don’t have an evacuation route: stay put, stay quiet, and wait for the nice men with guns to come and save you. Sometimes they’ll even show up in time.
We were halfway down the last flight of stairs when the sirens changed, going from a continuous shriek to a rising series of piercing air-horn blasts, like a car alarm with rabies. Alaric stumbled, knocking Kelly into Becks and nearly sending all three of them sprawling. I took two more steps and a get out of the way, and then turned, looking back toward the others.
That’s not a good sound.
“I know,” I muttered, before saying, more loudly, “Dave? What’s going on?”
Dave might as well have been a statue. He was standing frozen, eyes gone wide in a suddenly pale face. My question startled him back into the moment. He blinked at me twice, shook his head, and whipped his PDA out of his pocket, fingers shaking as he tapped the screen.
“We should be moving,” said Becks.
“We should be waiting,” I replied.
“We should be praying,” said Dave, glancing up. “This block has been declared a loss.”
Alaric closed his eyes. Becks started swearing steadily in a mixture of English, French, and what sounded like German. Even George got into the action, uttering some choice oaths at the back of my head. Only Kelly didn’t seem to share the group’s sudden distress. Sweet ignorance.
“Meaning what?” she asked. “Why are we stopping?”
“Meaning they salt the ashes,” said Becks, before starting to swear again.
Dave swallowed, squaring his shoulders as he looked at me. “Boss…”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“There’s got to be another option.”
There isn’t, said George, quietly. You know that. You have to let him.
“I can delay the lockdown. Not forever, but long enough.”
I shook my head. “No. There’s got to be—”
“There’s not,” said Alaric. I turned toward him, not quite fast enough to miss the mixture of terror and relief washing over Dave’s face. Alaric had pulled off his goggles, presumably so we could see his eyes. He was looking at me with something close to pity in his expression. “The computers in the apartment are wired into the building’s security systems. They can’t be controlled remotely, but they work just fine if you’re tapped directly into the cable. He can do it. But only if he does it from up there.”
“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?” I demanded. “You’re asking me to let him kill himself.”
“I’m asking you to let me do my job.” Dave’s voice was quiet, almost serene. “I didn’t become an Irwin because I wanted to live a long and happy life, boss. I sure as shit didn’t stay with this site because I thought it was going to be a cushy job. The math’s pretty simple. It’s me or it’s everybody. Pick one.”
“Can’t someone else—”
“Unless you’re planning to bring Buffy back from the de, no.”
My hand clenched into a fist. I forced myself to lower it, gritting my teeth all the way. “You’re trying to piss me off,” I accused.
“Yeah, I am,” Dave agreed. The air-horn blasts were getting louder and closer together, breaking up our conversation like gunshots. “Keep fighting me, and we all die here.” And then, the killing blow: “You’ll never find out who killed your sister.”
I stiffened. There was a moment where it could have gone either way; a moment where I could have grabbed him and dragged him along with us, where we would have been caught in the government lockdown when it hit our building.
Please, George whispered.
The moment passed.
“Who has the ID Dr. Wynne made for Kelly?” I demanded. Kelly blinked as she produced the card from her pocket. I snatched it from her hand and passed it to Dave. She started to protest. I cut her off, saying, “You’re not carrying any trackers, and your equipment checks clean. This is the only thing with circuitry we can’t decode, and somebody traced you here. Understand?”
Mutely, she nodded, face gone white with increasing terror. I’m not sure she’d realized before that moment that she could still be followed.
Dave shot me a pained look, saying, “Shaun—”
“Just don’t. You fucker, you better make this count.” I turned my back on him and continued down the stairs, snapping, “Move out!” to the others. I heard steps going up as he started back toward the apartment. Then the others were moving with me, Alaric and Becks hustling Kelly along.
We were halfway down the tunnel when the bleach jets came on, but that was all; no acid, no nerve toxins designed to target the infected and the healthy alike. We just got decontaminated, and then we were out, moving through the empty garage to our vehicles. Becks got Alaric and Kelly into the van while I donned my helmet and straddled George’s bike, shoving the key into the ignition.